


5 Things That Make Steve Happy

by kat8cha



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5 Things, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1449871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kat8cha/pseuds/kat8cha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam asked Steve 'what makes you happy?' Now, with Steve moving in with him and on their search for Bucky, Sam finds out five things that make Steve happy.</p><p>Pillow Forts, Art, Cooking, Motorcycles, Dancing</p><p>Light Spoilers for Captain America 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Things That Make Steve Happy

1) Pillow Forts

The first time Sam and Steve build a pillow fort it’s… partially an accident. Steve has moved in (‘Temporarily,’ he says to Sam, reassuring himself, ‘just until I can find a new place.’ ‘It’s alright, man, stay as long as you like.’ Sam replies with a smile.) with Sam and spent a few days on the couch while they got the guest bedroom cleaned out and the bed set up.

(‘I don’t want to put you out.’ ‘Steve, for the last time, I want you to stay, alright? And it’s about time I got rid of this junk.’)

A car backfires on the street one morning. Neither of them are… well, both of them react strongly. The bowl of cereal Sam had in his hands ends up on the couch, the picture of Steve in his boxers trends for three days straight, but the cereal is a more immediate problem. Once they’re both sure there aren’t any actual threats they set about cleaning up. Sam gets rags and a hand vacuum and Steve pulls the cushions off the couch.

It’s only once he’s got the last cushion in his hand and Sam’s attempting to gather up what soggy cheerios he can that he realizes something is up.

“Hey man, you gonna put that down?”

Steve looks at the pillow in his hands like he’s never seen it before. “Right.” He sets it carefully next to its brother but he’s still got that look. Sam knows that look. He has, in fact, seen that look on himself in the mirror as well as on the faces of the men and women he works with.

“You got a thing for pillows?” It wouldn’t be the first household object to trigger an episode. 

“No.” Steve says, then, “yes.” The same way he had been back at the VA. Still in denial, but at least he was quick to realize it. Sam wonders how long that’s taken him. “Bucky and I,”

Ah, Bucky. 

“We used to build forts.” 

Aaaaaaaah. 

“Aaaaaaaaah.” Sam nods, because, yeah, he gets that. “Pillow forts were a thing back in the 20s?”

“I’m pretty sure pillow forts are timeless.” Steve gets on his knees to scrub at the wet milk spot and Sam trashes his mound of cheerios. He comes back with the handvac and they clean up what they can. They do it in silence, well, except for the humming of the vacuum. Steve moves to put the cushions back on the couch but Sam catches his wrist. 

“So, how did you go about building pillow forts back in the stone age?” 

2) Art  
Steve’s been in and out of the Smithsonian for months, wandering through exhibits about history, science, and art. He has spent more than a few days looking at art, browsing old favorites and discovering new artists. His browser is full of bookmarks to sign up forms for a variety of art classes. But he’s always deferred because… well, there was S.H.I.E.L.D. and… no, just S.H.I.E.L.D.

He can’t even pretend he was spending time trying to figure his life out, he wasn’t, he still isn’t, really. He’s traded one mission for another.

“Hey, that’s… pretty good.” Steve’s hearing is excellent and he should have heard Sam coming up from behind him, he can’t blame the busy park only that he wasn’t paying attention. He was… focused. “Didn’t know you were an artist.”

Steve closes his notebook. “Surprised that isn’t in the history books.” He winces immediately after, not so much from the expression on Sam’s face but because he heard himself. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Sam sits next to him on the bench and hands over a styrofoam container. It’s heavy and warm in Steve’s hands, when he opens it up he finds a sandwich with pulled pork spilling out the sides onto macaroni and cheese (mac n’ cheese, he corrects himself) and coleslaw. He’s salivating. Sam hands him a plastic fork with a smile. “Eat up.”

They eat without trading anymore words, both of them focused on consumption. Steve finishes first, practically inhaling the meal, and then holds the syrofoam container in his hands. He sees people tossing their own containers into trash cans nearby and he winces at the waste, especially whenever a bottle or can or other recyclable material is thrown away. He’s a boy from the depression, he understands recycling, and he knows the cost of waste. Sam folds his own box up and holds out a hand for Steve’s.

“So, this city is a bust I guess.” Sam’s said it in a variety of different ways over the past few weeks. Steve’s plan to track Bucky down is… going as well as one would think. It should be easier for Steve, who has access to friends in high places with access to information networks that span the world as well as knowing Bucky like the back of his hand but… he’s come to accept he doesn’t know the Winter Soldier and the Soldier has been trained to hide. Rumors and grainy pictures have them slowly making their way west only to backtrack a few cities later. 

“I guess.” Steve rubs the tip of his pencil between his fingers. “So, no one ever talks about how I used to study art?” 

“What?” Sam tosses the stryofoam into the trash and turns to stare. Clearly Steve needs to work on his conversational skills. “Oh, right, no, no one mentions that. You studied?”

“Yeah.” Steve tucks the pencil into the spiral of his notebook and tucks it into his back pocket. He sort of wishes a larger sketchpad wouldn’t be so conspicuous.

He hasn’t done anything bigger than a doodle or a five minute sketch in ages. 

“I mean, I never… I never graduated college or anything. There was a war on.” And he’d been trying so hard to get into it, he’d never thought about what he might do after. Not eve as Captain America. Thinking just… wasn’t an option. Hadn’t been for a long time. “But I studied it.”

Sam’s grinning at him and it’s far too easy to return it, far too hard to turn it down. “Does it make you happy?”

Steve, thinking about monkeys drawn in the rain or the sketch in the back of the notebook depicting a pair of shell shocked eyes drops his gaze. “A bit.”

Sam doesn’t mention it again but he also thinks Steve doesn’t notice when he disappears during one of their rest stops and adds a plastic bag full of art supplies to the back of the car. 

 

3) Cooking

Sam and Steve have a chore list. Sam put it up shortly after Steve moved in so Steve didn’t keep doing things like taking out the trash, doing the dishes, and cleaning out the bathroom once a week. The chart is there for Sam so Sam remembers to do chores and doesn’t feel guilty that Steve is doing all of them. It’s also a little bit for Steve because there are chores that he didn’t even know existed.

But there’s one chore that Steve happily fights Sam over every night of the week.

“Cmon, man,” Sam isn’t kidding, it’s not Steve’s night to cook but he’s at the stove anyway, “let’s just order pizza.” It’s been a disappointing week, hell, a disappointing month, maybe, maybe a disappointing year. It’s also been a hard day and Sam’s just come back from hours and hours of being a shoulder to cry on. He’s used to it but some days… some days it can just be bad. People are still shaken from S.H.I.E.L.D.s take down, even months later, and some of Sam’s special cases are having trouble, worried still that somehow information got leaked that could ruin their lives.

Now, Sam’s not against the free dissemination of Hydra’s evil information banks but… he can see their point. He doubts most of them were on S.H.I.E.L.D.s radar but then again what does he know?

“Let’s just order pizza.” It’s Sam’s night to cook and he had a plan, or, he’d had a plan when he set out that morning. The plan included stopping by the co-op so he could pick up ingredients but he’d completely forgotten about it on the way home.

“We ordered pizza two days ago.” Is all Steve says before he tastes his risotto. Steve makes a mean risotto. “Dinner’ll be ready in a minute.”

Sam sighs and heads for the couch. A minute with Steve could actually mean a minute or it could mean five. He takes a chance to lie down anyway. 

He’s not sure how long ‘a minute’ actually takes but Steve shakes him awake from a doze. “Didn’t want the food to get cold.” He says with an apologetic smile. Sam rubs the sleep out of his eyes and stumbles to the breakfast/lunch/dinner nook. Dinner looks good, risotto and braised chicken and green beans sprinkled with the spice blend Sam keeps in the cupboard for such an occasion.

“You know, for a guy from a generation that boiled everything,” he smirks at Steve around a forkful of green beans. “You sure can cook.”

Steve smiles, he’s got a sprig of green stuck between two of his teeth and Sam for sure isn’t going to tell him. “Thanks. It’s… easier than I thought it was.” 

“Mmm hmm.” They’re not really talkers at dinner, too much habit not enough breaking it. At least they’re not stuffing their mouths as fast as possible (and for Steve that does mean as fast as possible).

Sam goes back for seconds, Steve for… Sam doesn’t count. End of the meal there’s really no left overs to speak of. “So…” Sam swirls his fork through the left-over juices. “Cooking make you happy?”

Steve gives Sam an accusatory look over his napkin covered mouth. “Sam.” He sounds accusatory too as he balls up the napkin and throws it at Sam’s head. “I can’t make a career out of cooking.”

“Sure you can! Think about it,” Sam already knows this is going to be a ‘soft things lobbed gently at him’ conversation so he starts backing out of the kitchen while he can. He’s just as good at lobbing things at Steve but the pillows are all in the living room and Steve’s already got his napkin and is wadding it up into a ball. “Captain America’s Cookbooks.” The napkin hits the door jamb. “Cap’s Kooky Cookies.” Sam leaps over the couch and grabs a throw pillow, ready for when Steve comes out of the kitchen. “Cooking Americana. The Captain’s A+ recipe for apple pie.”

Steve is laughing when the pillow hits him in the face.

 

4) Motorcycles

Steve knows he’s got a problem. He knows he has one. Well, he knows he has several but this one, this one he’s known since… since the war. Possibly a little before the war but that was completely lust with no fulfillment, now he’s got… well, now he’s got as much fulfillment as he wants. He loves the feel of it, the vibration between his thighs, the way it feels when he grips it in his fists, the push and throttle and the SOUND. He loves the sound. He loves the mess too, the clean up isn’t as bad as all that and he loves getting down and dirty for his…

…his…

“Why do people call vehicles after women?” Steve asks, he’s underneath his bike and he’s got grease on his hands and oil stains on his cheek and he’s starting to question things.

“I don’t know, man, because the named boats after women and things just caught on.” Sam’s not working on a bike or a car, he’s just sitting on his camp chair with an apple in one hand watching Steve. “We could look it up. Someone on the internet probably knows.” 

Steve plants the bike on its kickstand and stands up. “Someone on the internet might be wrong.”

Sam grins at him. “Someone on the internet always is.”

5) Dancing

The party invite was Sam’s, Izzy got engaged and now she’s going to be getting married and since she and Sam are friends she asked Sam if he and Steve wanted to come along with her other friends to hit the clubs. Sam wasn’t so sure it would be good for Steve, or, he was a little worried that Steve being ‘Captain America’ would get a lot more attention than it did.

It really didn’t get much attention at all, not from Izzy, who had issued the invitation, not from her fiancé (a nice girl named Rei), or the 5 other girls and 2 other guys who go out with them. What does draw attention is the fact that Sam and Steve aren’t actually dating.

“Seriously?” Andrew, who is lazing on Terry gives Steve and Sam both ‘the eye’. “You could have fooled me.”

Terry grins at Steve like a shark. Like a hungry shark. Like a hungry shark at a prime piece of rib.

Steve shifts closer to Sam so, you know, he noticed.

“Whatever,” Rei says, because Rei doesn’t judge and neither does Izzy. “Let’s dance!”

And that’s how Sam ends up on the dance floor with Captain America.

No, really, true story. 

He makes sure Steve gets on the floor as opposed to sipping either a virgin soda or some sort of fruity cocktail (since he couldn’t get drunk off of them Steve said they may as well taste good) and getting hit on by an endless string of girls and guys (he’s seen it happen during the Great Two Man Manhunt for Bucky Barnes). At first he thinks Steve’s going to end up doing the white boy shuffle but, once Steve gets going, he’s actually pretty good.

“He looks like some sort of ad!” Izzy shouts in Sam’s ear, Sam can hear her but he doubts that even Steve will overhear, the music is just that loud. “Something for…”

“Ax bodyspray?” Sam shouts back, Izzy swats at him and Sam dodges easily but the steps he takes forward end up with him pressing against Steve. Sam’s not a small guy, not by a longshot, and while he and Steve are practically matched in height Steve’s got a lot more impressive muscle than Sam does. He was joking about the Ax comment but Steve is… he’s a picture, for sure. Tall and strong and moving to the beat with his head thrown back and his eyes closed.

Yeah, definitely a picture.

“I’m not sure I like the music.” Steve says when he notices Sam’s pressed against his front.

“Is that really all you have to say?” Sam asks because, really, really? And when Steve keeps moving to the beat Steve’s thigh grinds against Sam’s groin, and Sam’s dick (do not make him release the falcon) makes it pretty obvious something caught his interest.

Someone.

Steve’s smile is all 1940s charm. “Wanna dance?”

“Depends.” Sam and Steve haven’t stopped dancing to chat, although their dancing is starting to become more like grinding and their chatting was always more like shouting. “Does it make you happy?”

Sam’s smile is all 2010s smugness. 

“Yes, Sam.” Steve laughed, then placed those big, warm, super soldier hands on Sam’s shoulder and ass, Sam returned the favor, happily groping… oh wait, dancing, happily dancing with Steve, the A stands for AMAZING ASS, Rogers. “It makes me happy.”


End file.
